Jail board should have considered outside candidates for warden
Jim McNutt/Observer-Reporter Exterior of the Observer-Reporter building in Washington.
On Wednesday, Edward Strawn, a veteran employee of Washington County Correctional Facility, went from being the acting warden of the jail, a post he has held since the June retirement of warden John Temas, to the actual warden. Strawn first clocked in at the jail in 1992 as a part-time corrections officer, worked on a transition team when the new jail was opened in the mid-1990s and has taken advantage of training opportunities along the way. It’s easy to see why Washington County Prison Board tapped the 54-year-old for the job, which comes with an annual salary of $78,200.
But two members of the prison board, Sheriff Samuel Romano and county Controller Michael Namie, dissented in the vote to approve the hiring, and they had valid reasons to do so.
While emphasizing their views did not reflect animosity toward Strawn or his potential as a warden, Romano and Namie felt the interview process the board undertook was flawed. After advertising for the opening, and receiving 42 applications, the only candidates the prison board interviewed were Strawn and two other employees of Washington County Correctional Facility.
Couldn’t at least a couple of those 39 other applicants also been worth talking to?
According to Namie, “We took the time to advertise, so it would have been a truer process had we interviewed some outside candidate.”
Indeed, in a 2015 article on the value of hiring internal candidates versus looking further afield, the Society for Human Resource Management pointed out that hiring job seekers from outside an organization can introduce fresh ideas and new skills. Seriously considering outside candidates also can provide a point of comparison when it comes to evaluating the strengths and abilities of internal candidates.
Namie and Romano cited other concerns in their votes against Strawn, with Romano saying his deputies have had to transport inmates to doctors offices and hospitals anywhere from 30 to 60 times in a typical month, while Namie pointed to suicides at the jail, recidivism and increasing costs for health care and prescription medicine. While these problems are hardly unique to Washington County Correctional Facility, it would have been instructive to hear how personnel at other jails confront these challenges.
Washington County Commissioner Larry Maggi, who serves on the prison board with fellow commissioners Diana Irey Vaughan and Harlan Shober, as well as Washington County District Attorney Gene Vittone and Court of Common Pleas Judge John DiSalle, acknowledged the concerns of Romano and Namie, but said they scrutinized the applications and “we got the best candidate. There are a lot of issues in corrections. I think we just felt a little different on what we are looking for.”
It should be noted specialists in hiring also argue promoting from within can be less costly, and employees who are already established within an organization require less time to get up to speed and already have an understanding of an institution’s culture. Fair enough. But the process of hiring a new jail warden for Washington County would have been that much more sound if a wider net had been cast.